can the estate agent sue me

In 2009, I put my business up for sale with a business estate agent. The selling price they quoted was far more than I had expected (or got) and I signed up with them on sole selling - with a verbal agreement to review after six months. In the three years he had it he never sent me one prospective buyer, and told me to stop calling him after I had called about three times on a monthly basis for a update on progress.
In October 2011 I told a member of my staff I was selling and she wanted to buy it. I wrote to the agent and told them I was withdrawing from using them as I was selling to a member of my staff. I heard nothing further until late 2012 = some nine months after completing the sale stating they had 'found out' I had sold the business and I had not contacted them. I sent a copy of the letter I had sent to them originally. They then wrote and told me they wanted the 3% of the original selling price which was some £60,000 more than the price I had sold it for. I refused, the upshot is they are taking me to the county court. We did have mediation, but their idea of mediation was for me to send them over £4000 pounds and I did not have it - plus they did absolutely nothing proactively to sell my business. Can anyone tell me if they have the right to charge me anything?

Wow, this is quite incredible but doesn't surprise me the neck of some estate agents!

It would appear to me that this is a UK based issue so I'm not entirely sure how this would be viewed by the UK courts but needless to say I would VIGOROUSLY defend this and in fact counter sue for harassment and possibly extortion!

You clearly stated that you wanted to withdraw their services and you have it in writing which may be invaluable if it does go to court. Furthermore you said right from the start that you would review it after 6 months anyway.

My guess is that there isn't a chance in hell that they will follow through all the way to court. They are trying to scare you into paying them something and it costs them little or nothing to throw around a few letters (even legal ones) so don't sweat it right now. Just take a VERY firm stance with them and ask them to stop harassing you with threats of legal action, you have done nothing wrong here.

Finally I would make it very clear (not in writing) to them that if it does go to court that you will notify the local media so they can follow the case in court. This would be a huge reputational risk to them and they would be insane to risk their whole business for a few grand, it would not look good in the public eye even if they won the case, in fact probably more so if they won the case as it would scare people off using their services even more!

Good Luck but don't let them grind you down, you have done nothing wrong!

What does your contract with them say ?

The clause he is relying on for the court case is:

" if unconditional contracts for the sale of the business are exchanged after the expiry of the period during which you have sole selling rights but to a purchaser who was introduced to me during that period"

The member of staff I eventually sold the business to, was not aware I had it up for sale until I told her two and a half years after I had tried to sell it through
this estate agent.

I had a similar experience - hold tough . A lot of these contracts have "expenses" hidden somewhere in a sub clauses . In my case ...it meant nothing .

You should have not told him you were selling it at all. You should have just withdrawn it and then sold it. I doubt they would have done anything then.

When did you send the letter to the agent cancelling the contract?